Six interesting technology law issues raised in the Facebook IPO

Patent trolls, open source, do not track, SOPA, PIPA and much, much more: Facebook’s IPO filing has a real zoo of issues. The securities laws require that companies going public identify risk factors that could adversely affect the company’s stock. Facebook’s S-1 filing, which it sent to the SEC today, identified almost 40 such factors. [...]

Privacy Commissioner explains problems with proposed lawful access law

That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows. With Parliament back in session, we are seeing more attention on the proposed “lawful access” legislation. There is good reason for that. Many of us believe the proposed legislation is an affront to privacy, and gives law enforcement overly intrusive rights without [...]

On the radio: Mobile devices and the Fourth Amendment

I was honored to be a guest on this morning’s episode of Oregon Public Broadcasting’s show Listen Out Loud, talking with host Dave Miller about the recent case of Schlossberg v. Solesbee. Listen to the interview here: MP3 We talked about the Fourth Amendment and, more specifically, the exceptions to the warrant requirement for searches [...]

Will Congress Take Privacy Out of Your Netflix Queue?

The Senate Judiciary is holding a hearing right now on a piece of legislation, H.R. 2471, that you likely haven’t heard of but will have a big impact on your Netflix account. Yes. Netflix. Sometimes even called the Netflix bill (they have cl…

Happy Data Privacy Day

For more details see the Privacy Commissioner’s website.

There is no “generalized right to rummage” through an adversary’s Facebook account

Tompkins v. Detroit Metro. Airport, 2012 WL 179320 (E.D. Mich. January 18, 2012) Plaintiff filed a personal injury lawsuit against defendants claiming she was impaired in her ability to work and enjoy life. One of the defendants filed a motion with the court asking it to order plaintiff to authorize access to her entire Facebook [...]

ACLU Lens: Google’s New Privacy Policy

Google is following you.  
Yesterday evening, Google announced a new privacy policy effective March 1. The new policy is consistent across the vast majority of Google products, and it’s in English; you don’t have to speak le…

Privacy – 1 step forward, 1 step back

That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows. Getting the privacy balance right is not easy, from both theoretical and practical perspectives. As examples, here are some recent developments that go both ways. Pro Privacy Proposed Bill C-12 amendments to PIPEDA that would mandate privacy breach notification in certain circumstances. [...]

Ordering defendant to decrypt hard drive did not violate her Fifth Amendment rights

U.S. v. Fricosu, 10-CR-00509 (D. Colo. January 23, 2012) Pursuant to a warrant, federal agents seized defendant’s laptop from her home. When investigators turned it on, they saw the hard drive’s contents were encrypted using PGP Desktop. Defendant would not voluntarily turn over the password to decrypt the drive, so the Government filed an application [...]

United States v. Jones is a Near-Optimal Result

This morning, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in United States v. Jones, the GPS tracking case, deciding unanimously that the government violated the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights when it installed a wireless GPS tracking device on the…